John Payne, in his comprehensive 1798 tome, A New and Complete System of Universal Geography, noted the flouring mills along the Jones Falls near Baltimore. At the time, wealthy abolitionist Elisha Tyson owned two of the ten documented mills: one at…

Founded in 1863 by German immigrants Ludwig Hilgartner and Gottfried Schimpf, Hilgartner Stone has made some of the nation’s finest stonework for over one hundred and fifty years. Of course, the company has made a unique mark on both Baltimore’s…

Like the countless seeds the Meyer Seed Company has sold over the past hundred years, the story of this long-running legacy business starts with water. Before he held a seed bucket or a watering can, the company’s founder, John F. Meyer, worked as a…

When Baltimorean William Painter invented the bottle cap in 1891, it didn’t take long for beverage companies (beer brewers in particular) to realize its value, and for Painter to realize he needed to build significant manufacturing facilities to…

Before the rise of textile mills, the fast-flowing water of the Jones Falls instead powered gristmills supplying Baltimore's lucrative flour trade. Whitehall Mill was established as a gristmill in the late 1700s and owned by James Ellicott, a member…

Mt. Washington Mill—historically Washington Mill, part of Washington Cotton Manufacturing Company—is one of Maryland’s earliest purpose-built cotton mills. In the early nineteenth century, the Napoleonic Wars and the Embargo Act disrupted imports…

Mount Vernon Mill No. 3 was once part of the network of mills owned by the Mount Vernon Mill Company. The village of Stone Hill, adjacent to Mill No. 3, was built around 1845 to house the growing workforce. Families housed in the cottage-like stone…

August Rosenberger got into the broom business by chance in the late 1800s. One of his customers, a farmer who was unable to make ends meet, asked Mr. Rosenberger if he would accept a small shack with one broom machine and one sewing machine in…

In 1834, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Weber and their nephew, August Hoen, carried pieces of lithographic machinery, lithographic stones, and ink powders from Coblenz, Germany, to America. Upon arriving in America in 1835, Weber founded the E. Weber and A.…

Originally known as Druid Mill, Union Mill was built between 1865 and 1872. At the time, it was the largest cotton duck mill in the United States. A unique feature of the mill's construction is the use of locally quarried stone. The other mills…

Looking up at this large, handsome red brick and stone building across Baltimore Street, one can just make out the remnants of “Hendler Creamery Company” written across the front façade. Manuel Hendler (1885-1962) opened this ice cream manufacturing…

Constructed in 1911, the American Ice Company is an enduring reminder of West Baltimore’s industrial development with a striking brick facade on W. Franklin Street and a powerhouse that backs up to the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks. At the time of…

The Appold- Faust Brothers Building at 307-309 West Baltimore Street is one of a handful of surviving cast-iron fronted buildings in Baltimore and one of the only structures in the city that can boast two iron facades on front and back. The…

Tracey Clark and Ben Riddleberger purchased the 1885 gas valve building, historically known as the Chesapeake Gas Works, in 2005 to house their architectural salvage business—Housewerks. Riddleberger and Clark have since stabilized and restored the…

Mill No. 1 sits on the site of Laurel Mill, a late 18th-century flour mill originally owned by prominent businessman and abolitionist Elisha Tyson. In 1849, the newly chartered Mount Vernon Company built a textile mill on the site. Mill No. 1 stood…

The Morgan Millwork Company, now known as the MICA Graduate Studio Center, is a product of Baltimore's once vibrant industrial development and a clear reflection of how industry has struggled in Baltimore over the past 50 years. J. Earl Morgan…